John Wick - What You Need To Know about the Corporate Transparency Act
Once Removed Episode 24: Expressing Goals and Intent for the Trust
Once Removed Episode 22: Building Flexibility into the Estate Plan
Once Removed Episode 20: Helping a Beneficiary Purchase a Home
Once Removed Episode 19: The Step-Transaction Doctrine and the Case of Smaldino
Next Generation Legacy Management - The Essence of Developing, Managing and Implementing a Plan for Future Generations
A Primer On Trusts - A Podcast with Janathan Allen
Once Removed Episode 13: It’s 5 o’Clock: Do You Know Where Your Will Is? A Lesson From Aretha Franklin
Charitable Bequests With Guest Stephanie Hood
Once Removed Episode 12: SLATs and the Case of McKim vs. McKim
Once Removed Episode 11: Spousal Lifetime Access Trusts, or SLATs
Digital Planning Podcast Episode: Family Office Technology Solutions
Digital Planning Podcast Episode: The Uniform Electronic Estate Planning Documents Act
What is a self-proving affidavit?
The Importance of Beneficiary Designations
Basics of Estate Planning
The Case of the Disappearing Trust
Protecting Your Estate Plan from Challenges: No-Contest Clause Explained
The Secret Child
Welcome to 'Splitting Heirs'
The TCJA doubled the lifetime exclusion and GST tax exemption. This exclusion amount, adjusted for inflation, is now $13.61 million and is expected to be approximately $13.99 million in 2025. However, in 2026, the amount will...more
Today’s federal estate and gift tax laws may be remembered as the most generous to wealthy families since the Great Depression. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) doubled the federal estate, gift, and generation skipping...more
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 provided major changes to the Internal Revenue Code, specifically doubling the federal estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax exemption (collectively, the exemption) from...more
Because each donor is treated as a separate party for tax and other purposes, donors often involve others in making gifts. For example, a donor might transfer assets to his or her spouse, so the spouse actually makes the gift...more
The Internal Revenue Service recently announced increased transfer tax exclusions for calendar year 2024 as part of Revenue Procedure 2023-34. The significant increases in the unified credit against estate, gift and...more
A strong stock market and “soft landing” have generated significant wealth this year. The gift tax, estate tax and generation-skipping transfer tax are all imposed on the fair market value of assets at the time of transfer....more
Over the past few years, an unprecedented number of taxpayers have been taking advantage of the historically high estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax (GST tax) exemptions—currently $12.92 million for 2023 or...more
During 2022, COVID-19, the war in Ukraine, global inflation, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), the uncertainty about the Build Back Better Act (BBBA), the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), and the Inflation Reduction Act...more
Our annual estate and tax planning newsletter discusses certain concepts and techniques that should be considered in 2022 by our clients and friends in California. Perhaps the most important recent development was the failure...more
Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee released, and advanced out of committee, draft tax legislation intended to form a part of the Democratic budget reconciliation bill. At almost 900 pages in length, this draft...more
On Sunday, September 12, 2021, the House Ways & Means Committee (the "Committee") released draft legislation as part of Congress' ongoing $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation process. The legislation, as approved by the...more
Advance planning in light of the proposed tax law changes included in the For the 99.5 Percent Act, STEP Act and the Biden Administration’s Green Book. Proposed tax law changes introduced this year provide valuable insight...more
For years, we have known that Tennessee has one of the most robust trust codes in the country. While this is surprisingly not one of the main topics at dinner tables nationwide, more than just Tennessee residents can share...more
The Estate Planning Team at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP issues advisories regularly to communicate important law changes and other matters of interest to our clients, their advisors, and our friends. The 2020 presidential...more
In 2020, COVID-19, the US presidential election, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the TCJA), and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (the CARES ACT) dominated the planning landscape....more
- Annual inflation-indexing continues to increase the historically high lifetime exemption amount for gift, estate, and generation-skipping transfer taxes. Those of considerable wealth who have not yet made gifts, such as...more
Don’t overlook foreign assets when planning your estate - You’d be surprised how often people fail to disclose foreign assets to their estate planning advisors. They assume that these assets aren’t relevant to their “U.S.”...more
Now or later - When’s the right time to transfer your wealth? - To gift or not to gift? It’s a deceptively complex question. The temporary doubling of the gift and estate tax exemption — to an inflation-adjusted...more
Many estate planning provisions of the Internal Revenue Code contain brackets, exemptions, exclusions, deductions, or other figures that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) adjusts annually for inflation. Recently, the IRS...more
There have been a number of significant estate planning developments in 2018 which will help clients prepare for 2019. The historically high increased exemption amounts for gift, estate and generation-skipping transfer...more
When the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was passed, significant changes were made to the Federal Estate, Gift and Generation-Skipping Transfer Tax, the most prominent of which is the increased applicable exclusion amount, which...more
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (Act), passed at the end of 2017 by Congress and signed into law by President Trump on December 22, 2017, provides far-reaching changes to the federal tax landscape. Much has been written regarding...more
The newly enacted U.S. tax law makes significant changes to provisions of the Internal Revenue Code affecting high net worth individuals, their investment entities and family offices. These changes are likely to spur gift...more
Billionaire David Rockefeller, the grandson of John D. Rockefeller, passed away recently at the age of 101. In 2017, Forbes estimated that his fortune, investments in real estate, share of family trusts, and other holdings...more
What with changing life circumstances and new tax laws, not to mention potential mistakes made when an estate plan was first drafted, the trusts used in the plan may now be “broken.” This article details why trusts break and...more